Of the Volkswagen-Group has in the first half of the year despite persistent delivery problems microchips and tough corona restrictions in China made a significant jump in profits. The Wolfsburg-based company was able to increase earnings after taxes by a little more than a quarter to a total of 10.6 billion euros compared to the same period last year.
The second quarter, in which above all renewed lockdowns had slowed down production and sales in the most important market in Asia, still put a lot of pressure on business with a drop in profits of a good 22 percent. The paragraph of electric cars but continued to pick up. On the stock exchange put the Volkswagen shares
by 2.6 percent.
Chief Financial Officer Arno Antlitz (52) said Europe’s largest car group had “demonstrated considerable financial resilience” despite “unprecedented global challenges”. Volkswagen also expects the supply chain problems to ease in the second half of the year. The group confirmed the outlook for the year.
Sales in the second quarter grow moderately
In the second quarter, sales grew by 3.3 percent over the year to 69.5 billion euros. The operating result adjusted for special costs for the diesel affair fell by 27.7 percent to 4.74 billion euros. Valuation effects weighed heavily, especially for commodity hedging transactions. These alone accounted for 2.4 billion euros after they had significantly pimped up the operating result in the first quarter. Before including these book losses, the result in the second quarter improved again compared to the previous quarter, it said.
The main brand VW improved its earning power in the first half of the year and raised its return forecast. The burdens expected in the second half of the year from raw material and energy costs are to be compensated for with further savings. The company is making great progress in the implementation of its electrical strategy as well as in digitization and software development and gained significant momentum again in the second quarter, explained brand boss Thomas Schäfer.
Core brand VW improves profitability, group confirms outlook
Volkswagen confirmed the outlook just under a week after the decision Replace CEO Herbert Diess (63) with Porsche boss Oliver Blume (54).
. Accordingly, the operating return should be in a range between 7.0 and 8.5 percent. In the second quarter, Volkswagen achieved an EBIT margin of 6.8 percent (previous year: 9.7 percent). Sales for the year as a whole are expected to be 8 to 13 percent higher than in the previous year. Competitor Mercedes-Benz recently raised its forecast.
On the planned IPO of the sports car subsidiary Porsche Volkswagen initially did not comment. Some experts are critical of the project because of Blume’s planned dual role as Porsche driver and head of the Volkswagen group.
Delivery bottlenecks depress profits at VW subsidiary Traton
The group also published figures for Traton: Thanks to a strong maintenance business, Volkswagen’s truck and bus holding company has grown more than expected. In the first half of the year, sales rose by almost a third to 18 billion euros, as the SDax company announced on Thursday. Adjusted operating profit, on the other hand, fell by 29 percent to 798 million euros. Here the company referred to persistent supply bottlenecks, a resulting lower capacity utilization and increased procurement prices. In addition, the war in Ukraine is causing uncertainty.